#IWSG – Therapy and Writing

I can’t do reviews or previews too often. Good reviews take time away from writing, and I need to write.

Far Flung, flawed as it may be, will get finished. I will get it edited and prepared professionally, despite money issues – I’ve seen too many crappy ebooks with garbage covers, and I will not let my story be among them. If I have to get it edited chapter by chapter, so be it.

Work on Far Flung will be followed immediately by work on its sequel, which I will submit to the Launchpad Competition. If I understand correctly, I get a free submission this year thanks to my placement in the list last year.

I need therapy and I can’t afford it. Betterhelp.com is an option I’ve tried, and I don’t have money for it now. There’s also 7 cups, which has a premium version I can’t afford, but there seems to be some amount of free help I can get, so I’ll look into that. Face-to-face options near me are very limited, but perhaps 1 or 2 sessions a month will be manageable.

I need to somehow improve myself despite being completely shut out by my wife. We can’t afford a separation. We can’t afford couples counseling. I can’t see my friends very often. So I’m stuck doing this myself until I make some change that she can recognize.

I need to write every day, and my online presence will suffer for it. I wish I could do more reviews, guests posts, and other things, but I write too slowly for all that. My fiction takes priority.

I can give some idea of a timeline, though. Far Flung can get to the professional editing stage this year. I think having a draft ready for publication is an attainable goal for the end of this year. Actual publication is more likely to be in 2019.

As for my self-improvement? I’m exercising, and I’ve cut soda out entirely. No weight loss I can report yet. I still have to figure out which therapy is good for me that I can actually afford, but I think it will be focused on general anxiety and various issues with my family.

This blog, when I’m confident I can write for it AND keep up my fiction writing, will look at the ways my therapy for anxiety ties in with writing fiction. Maybe this blog can help other anxious writers. I think mental health issues and being good at writing overlap far more often than any of us like to admit, and it would be worthwhile to explore that correlation.

That looks like a lot of stress you’re under. Concentrate on the bits most important to you and take it one step at a time. Don’t stress about the not-so-necessary things you feel you ‘ought’ to be doing. Good luck.